9,349 questions
Microsoft Authenticator Lost All Codes Unexpectedly
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Ixer
0
Reputation points
The Microsoft Authenticator app, used for OTP codes for the past five years, suddenly shows no stored codes after opening it this morning. The app prompts to add an account, and the "Backup" option appears disabled in settings. After attempting to restore codes from backup, only the Microsoft account code is visible. Additionally, the app does not receive notifications for login attempts to the Microsoft account, and an error message is displayed when pressing the "refresh" button.
No cleaning or optimizing software has been used, and there have been no recent app installations or file removals on the device. The phone is an Honor 8A running Android 9 with Core version 4.9.117+.
Is there a way to restore the lost codes?
P.S. Apologies for the language; the primary language is Ukrainian.
Microsoft Security | Microsoft Authenticator
{count} votes
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JimmySalian-2011 42,511 Reputation points2025-04-14T12:01:49.1333333+00:00 Hi,
It seems you tried to login before you restore the accounts and for that you will need to follow different steps listed here - https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/account-billing/how-to-sign-out-from-authenticator-c3ff49e6-e172-4134-abeb-ced28a0ed8c3
Please try these steps and see if it helps, otherwise you will need to contact support for recovering other accounts if backups does not have recovery information.
Hope this helps.
JS
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Ixer 0 Reputation points
2025-04-14T12:28:17.0933333+00:00 This is a completely senseless decision: the first link says that you need to sign out of the account, but to do that, you have to delete the backup. That means no information can be restored afterward. I absolutely don't understand why the existing backup was deleted during the sign-in process.
Trust in the mentioned app, which I had been using for over 5 years, is completely and irreversibly lost. How can such important information be deleted so easily? Without any warning, without any attempt to recover it. I signed into the account that had previously been used in the app and enabled backup for the codes. If such information existed before, then why wasn’t it restored? I don’t understand. This is an absolute failure. There is no point in entrusting such critical information to an app that so easily deletes extremely sensitive data without any reason. I have no words left.
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